The present invention relates in general to seats for materials handling vehicles, and more particularly, to systems and methods for integrating adjustable resistance features with swiveling seats for materials handling vehicles. The present invention further relates to swivel seats with adjustable resistance capabilities and materials handling vehicles having swiveling seats with adjustable resistance capabilities.
Materials handling vehicles typically include a platform, cab or other form of operator's compartment having an operator's seat and a number of control elements located in the vicinity of the seat within reach of the hands and/or feet of a corresponding vehicle operator. The control elements typically include steering and traction controls for navigating the vehicle and various switches and levers, which are provided for operating the load handling features of the vehicle.
In operation of a typical materials handling vehicle, situations may arise where the vehicle operator may wish to obtain different fields of view, such as when performing certain driving and/or load handling operations. As such, the operator's seat may rotate/swivel to reposition the operator within the operator's compartment. In this regard, the ability of the operator's seat to rotate may be limited, e.g., by the physical constraints of the operator's compartment, by the positioning of the control elements, and/or by the necessity of the operator to engage in different seated positions.